The first of ten Stan Tug 1907 ICE ves­sels has been deliv­ered by Great Lakes Ship­yard to its sis­ter com­pa­ny The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny, both based in Ohio, USA. Named Cleve­land, she is a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in a licens­ing pro­gramme agreed between Damen Ship­yards Group and Great Lakes Ship­yard fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions that began in 2014. While the ini­tial agree­ment is for the series build of ten tugs for Great Lakes Tow­ing, the ves­sels will also be avail­able to third par­ty buy­ers on a pri­or­i­ty basis.

The Stan Tug 1907 ICE is a com­pact design capa­ble of 30.0‑tons of bol­lard pull. Its rel­a­tive­ly small size and high manoeu­vra­bil­i­ty make it ide­al for the nar­row water­ways with their many low bridges that char­ac­terise the Great Lakes region. The abil­i­ty to oper­ate safe­ly in icy waters is also essen­tial giv­en the very cold tem­per­a­tures that occur there in the winter.

The Cleve­land has got off to a good start. On her first morn­ing in ser­vice she “was put to work for two ship assists. The first was for Fed­nav Inter­na­tion­al Lim­it­ed, Mon­tre­al, and the sec­ond was for Rand Cor­po­ra­tion, based in New Jer­sey,” report­ed Joe Star­ck, Pres­i­dent of Great Lakes Ship­yard and the Tow­ing Com­pa­ny. “Both tows went with­out a hitch and the feed­back then and since has been very pos­i­tive. One of the pilots on the first day even com­ment­ed that the new tug made manoeu­vring much eas­i­er. The boat has per­formed even bet­ter than we expect­ed, with­out the need for the typ­i­cal “tweaks” that are nor­mal­ly required after com­ple­tion of a new tug.”

As was expect­ed, the build of the Cleve­land was some­thing of a learn­ing expe­ri­ence, not least because var­i­ous Euro­pean work­ing prac­tis­es had to be trans­lat­ed into their Amer­i­can equiv­a­lents, and numer­ous adap­ta­tions had to be made to meet USA reg­u­la­tions. How­ev­er, with these achieved for the Cleve­land and the pro­duc­tion process now ful­ly opti­mised, the fol­low-on hulls will be com­plet­ed more quick­ly and efficiently.

“Damen was always there when we need­ed them,” con­tin­ued Joe Star­ck. “It has tru­ly been a plea­sure to work with them, and we have real­ly enjoyed get­ting to know the entire Damen team. They’re a first class organisation.”

The Great Lakes Group traces its root back to 1899, and from its head­quar­ters in Cleve­land, Ohio, oper­ates its ship­yard, as well as over 40 tugs based in eleven ports.

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Damen Ship­yards Group

Damen Ship­yards Group oper­ates 33 ship­build­ing and repair yards, employ­ing 9,000 peo­ple world­wide. Damen has deliv­ered more than 6,000 ves­sels in more than 100 coun­tries and deliv­ers some 180 ves­sels annu­al­ly to cus­tomers world­wide. Based on its unique, stan­dard­ised ship-design con­cept Damen is able to guar­an­tee con­sis­tent quality.

Damen’s focus on stan­dard­i­s­a­tion, mod­u­lar con­struc­tion and keep­ing ves­sels in stock leads to short deliv­ery times, low ‘total cost of own­er­ship’, high resale val­ues and reli­able per­for­mance. Fur­ther­more, Damen ves­sels are based on thor­ough R&D and proven technology.

Damen offers a wide range of prod­ucts, includ­ing tugs, work­boats, naval and patrol ves­sels, high speed craft, car­go ves­sels, dredgers, ves­sels for the off­shore indus­try, fer­ries, pon­toons and superyachts.

For near­ly all ves­sel types Damen offers a broad range of ser­vices, includ­ing main­te­nance, spare parts deliv­ery, train­ing and the trans­fer of (ship­build­ing) know-how. Damen also offers a vari­ety of marine com­po­nents, such as noz­zles, rud­ders, anchors, anchor chains and steel works.

Damen Shiprepair & Con­ver­sion (DSC) has a world­wide net­work of six­teen repair and con­ver­sion yards of which twelve are locat­ed in North West Europe. Facil­i­ties at the yards include more than 50 float­ing and (cov­ered) dry­docks, the largest of which is 420 x 90 metres, as well as slopes, ship lifts and indoor halls. Projects range from the small­est sim­ple repairs through Class’ main­te­nance to com­plex refits and the com­plete con­ver­sion of large off­shore struc­tures. DSC com­pletes around 1,350 repair and main­te­nance jobs annu­al­ly, both at yards as well as in ports and dur­ing voyage.